My cow costume turned out alright after only one hour of sewing and a few finger burns from my hot glue gun. Amara helped me cut out my spots and Terra chose where they’d go.

Terra loved being Pocahontas. She kept asking me to reapply her lipstick.

Amara’s red squirrel tail was perfect for Trick-or-Treating

Sister love!

The girls did so well with Trick-or-Treat. They said “thank you” every single time 🙂

Amara with half of her stash

Terra with half of her stash

Halloween was a hard holiday for me to pull off on my own. I felt bad about not having their father’s pumpkin carving skills and not being able to take them to as many festivities as I wanted to due to being a single parent, pregnant, and insanely busy with graduate school. I don’t think they felt slighted though. They both loved their costumes and had a wonderful time celebrating. I suppose it’s not always about how much you get to do, it’s how much you get to enjoy what you’re doing, and we had a good time doing everything.

We attended the girl’s school Halloween party tonight. To my delight they looked alright. It was a good test run for the actual trick-or-treat; certain elements of their costumes need tweaking, but for approximately ten hours of work I am pleased with the results.

Amara was a red squirrel, Terra was Pocahontas

Since we were running late (as always) we weren’t able to make the pumpkin cookies we’d signed up to bring to the party. We love our pumpkin cookie recipe and make it every autumn. I will probably make them next week and bring them as a treat for the girls’ classmates anyway. The cookies are too good not to share (plus, no one ate our crackers and hummus offering tonight and I feel slightly guilty)! Here’s the recipe (we adapted it from a recipe we found years ago on Cooks.com):

Pumpkin Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

4 Cups flour

2 Cups oatmeal

2 Tsp baking soda

2 Tsp cinnamon

1 Tsp salt

1 1/2 Cups coconut oil

1/2 Cup white sugar

2 Cups brown sugar

1 egg

1 Tsp vanilla

1 1/2 Cups canned pumpkin

1/2 Cup walnuts

1/2 Cup raisins

1/2 Cup shredded coconut

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, walnuts, raisins, and shredded coconut. In a separate, smaller bowl, combine the oil, white sugar, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla . Whisk the contents of the smaller bowl thoroughly. Add the pumpkin to the smaller bowl in 1/2 cup increments, mixing thoroughly with each addition. Combine all the ingredients in the large mixing bowl and stir together with a spoon (it gets very thick, you may have to clear your spoon and start in different places of the bowl to ensure an even mixture). Drop small spoonfuls of dough onto greased baking sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350F (or until lightly browned).

Yields: A LOT! 4 dozen or so, depending on how big your spoonfuls of dough.

Substitution FYI: These cookies taste wonderful with butternut squash in place of pumpkin.